Obscured By Clouds
by Pink Floyd

Obscured By Clouds by Pink Floyd
Year: 1972
Release date: 1972-06-02
Overall rank: 1,554th   Overall chart history
Average Rating: 
74/100 (from 741 votes)
  Ratings distribution   Average rating history
Accolades:
Award Top albums of 1972 (29th)
Award Top albums of the 1970s (291st)
Award Best albums of all time (1,554th)

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Pink Floyd bestography

Obscured By Clouds is ranked 13th best out of 37 albums by Pink Floyd on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by Pink Floyd is The Dark Side Of The Moon which is ranked number 2 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 57,948.

Pink Floyd album bestography « Higher ranked (1,522nd)
A Momentary Lapse Of Reason
This album (1,554th)
Obscured By Clouds
Lower ranked (1,554th) »
Obscured By Clouds

(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).

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Obscured By Clouds track list

  Track ratings The tracks on this album have an average rating of 80 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).

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Obscured By Clouds rankings

Rankings summary
Overall rank: 1,554th | 1970s rank: 291st | 1972 rank: 29th

Obscured By Clouds collection

Obscured By Clouds ratings

Average Rating: 
74/100 (from 741 votes)
  Ratings distribution Help Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

Showing latest 5 ratings for this album.  | Show all 741 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
85/100
 
05/29/2026 13:47 JoshN125  Ratings distribution  24688/100
 
80/100
 
05/22/2026 20:27 MetalMan67  Ratings distribution  6,11171/100
 
90/100
 
05/11/2026 04:28 emnasut  Ratings distribution  15387/100
 
80/100
 
05/08/2026 15:06 michelefarina  Ratings distribution  6486/100
 
65/100
 
05/06/2026 19:55 Jakor  Ratings distribution  5,43370/100

Rating metrics: Help Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)

This album is rated in the top 22% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 73.7/100, a mean average of 73.0/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 73.8/100. The standard deviation for this album is 14.9.

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Obscured By Clouds comments

Showing latest 10 comments | Show all 37 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
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Rating:  
70/100
From 02/01/2022 19:12 | #280423
I like many of the songs as songs, but they aren't working as an album for me and there are some definitely not good songs.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
30/100
From 01/11/2022 21:15 | #279181
Didn't really like this album as a whole, but Wot's Uh The Deal is excellent and definitely in my top 5 Pink Floyd songs. Stay is nice too. The Gold It's In The... has a great guitar riff. The rest of the album is unspectacular.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
75/100
From 09/20/2021 22:20 | #274001
Yeah, this is definitely the weakest offering from 1970s Pink Floyd, by quite a margin. As it is a soundtrack, it's quite unfocused at times, jumping from hard blues rock to psychedelic soft rock within minutes of each other, some passages are splendidly hazy, others are intensely harsh. Guitar solos are on point, as always. Definitely worth a listen or two.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | -1 votes (0 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
Rating:  
80/100
From 01/12/2021 15:45 | #264291
A good album, but since it's a soundtrack, it makes it a bit hard to get through
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
95/100
From 12/06/2020 17:39 | #262148
The most underrated Pink Floyd album. I honestly don’t understand why people don’t love this
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 06/09/2020 13:27 | #253162
This is my second favourite Floyd album nowadays. I really don't get the constant dismissal of this. Never have. I think it's superb.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
65/100
From 07/13/2019 01:59 | #239405
If you don't compare this album to Pink Floyd's much more superior other 70's material, this is a good album.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
90/100
From 03/15/2019 14:17 | #233580
Rather underrated, and this comes from someone who is just discovering all of pre-Dark-Side PF simultaneously without any prior bias. The moment in the "Absolutely Curtains" at 2:37 when the choir suddenly bursts is pure psychedelic magic, for instance.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 02/24/2019 21:12 | #232522
This is most definitely a Floyd album with one foot in the past and one in the future. Burning Bridges sounds like it came out of a Meddle session, and the opening drum pattern for Childhood's End is well established as having been inspirational (if not just copied and pasted) for Time on DSOM. It is slightly heavier than much of their output, but this works well in the context of the album, and there are plenty of gentle moments too. Overlooked, yes. A classic, no. Worthy of attention, yes.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +3 votes (3 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
95/100
From 08/12/2018 14:28 | #219609
In the amount of time they made this album they did a bang up job because it is fantastic. It's my second favorite these days under Animals. This album grew on me more than any other album I own.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
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Best Albums of 1972
1. The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars by David Bowie
2. Exile On Main St. by The Rolling Stones
3. Pink Moon by Nick Drake
4. Close To The Edge by Yes
5. Harvest by Neil Young
6. Transformer by Lou Reed
7. Machine Head by Deep Purple
8. Ege Bamyası by Can
9. Thick As A Brick by Jethro Tull
10. Foxtrot by Genesis